“We ourselves are here for repurposing – to exchange ways for ensuring more and substantive women's leadership and women’s power” – UN Women Executive Director
Date:
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Thank you very much, Mr Secretary-General,
Thank you very much Madam President,
Thank you dear colleagues and friends.
First let me thank you, Madam President, for hosting us so graciously, for the hard work of your team, and for the wonderful, inspirational time we have spent together.
Thank you for giving birth to UN Women, making it possible for me to arrive in an organization that was already fit for purpose. You prepared for the establishment of the organization, sacrificed and suffered the labour pains that gave birth to it. Thank you so much.
Thank you too, Secretary-General, for your support.
To the delegates who attended this conference on women’s leadership and power, thank you for your profound contribution. You have called for a new paradigm in which men and women are equal. That is yet to be achieved in most spheres of life.
Ladies and Gentlemen, here in Estación Mapocho, we are meeting in a station that has been re-purposed. We ourselves are here for re-purposing – to exchange ways for ensuring more and substantive women's leadership and women’s power.
A station is a place that brings people together, and from where people set off in a multitude of different directions to serve other purposes. Here we met as friends, colleagues, and travellers, and from here we set out again, invigorated by the journey, with renewed, stronger and even more determination to achieve gender equality and to change the course of history.
I thank all the delegates and everybody who participated in this meeting. Your ideas were brilliant, and we will take them and your suggestions forward. We will act on them and use them to work with you and many more partners for a new and bolder outlook, which aims at change for the better rather than fitting into the paradigm that is failing women and girls.
We are committed to implement and take on the call to action, which captures this hunger and determination to achieve change at an increased and accelerated pace.
We must embark on joint actions from here. We must meet again to continue what we have started here and to take stock. We will reach out to you for that purpose, because this is to be continued.
Thank you.